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An innovative model for health planning has improved equity of access and outcomes

Clinician frustration with marginalisation of their influence in the public hospitals and a growing mistrust of centralised bureaucracy reached boiling point in New South Wales in 1999. In response, the then Minister for Health established a program aimed at re-engaging clinicians in the governance of health services. One outcome of this engagement was the emergence of an entity, unique in the Australian context — the Greater Metropolitan Transition Taskforce (GMTT). At the core of this entity was clinician-led responsibility for the development of networks and plans for clinical services across a population of five million people. Two complimentary, independent reviews1,2 of the outcomes of the GMTT led to the permanent establishment of its successor, the Greater Metropolitan Clinical Taskforce (GMCT), in 2005, and the current search for a full-time clinician chief executive officer to carry it to the next phase. It is timely to review the achievements and outcomes of the GMTT (Box) and the relevance of these to future clinician involvement in health governance across Australia and, perhaps, beyond.

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